FP1: Rosberg takes early honours

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FP1: Rosberg takes early honours

Nico Rosberg set the early benchmark for the German Grand Prix in what proved to be a productive FP1 session for all teams.
As was expected before the teams even arrived at Hockenheim, the Mercedes cars were once again at the front of the grid and it was Rosberg who got the better of his team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the first session.
The German's time of 1:19.131 edged Hamilton by a mere 0.060s with Fernando Alonso third, Daniel Ricciardo fourth and Jenson Button completing the top five. Interestingly Hamilton was quicker than Rosberg in the first two sectors, but he couldn't put together the perfect lap to take P1.
Ferrari endured another mixed session with Alonso's 1:19.423 the "best of the rest", but his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was down in eighth with a 1:20.210. Both Alonso and Raikkonen completed 21 laps, but the Finn spent a lot of time in the garage due to a water pump problem.
As usual the Red Bulls of Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel - P6 - were there or thereabouts while Button and his McLaren team-mate Kevin Magnussen proved that their Silverstone performance was no fluke.
One team who perhaps didn't get the results they were looking for is Williams. Susie Wolff had another chance to impress following her short stint at Silverstone. She once again had another false start as she was forced to slow down on her installation lap, but luckily it wasn't a serious issue and she returned to the track to complete 22 laps with her best time slotting her in P15, a four positions down from her team-mate Felipe Massa.
Marussia and Caterham once again occupied the bottom four, but worryingly for Lotus it looks like they are in for another difficult race with Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldondo were 17th and 18th respectively.
Times01 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m19.131s 29 laps02 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m19.196s +0.065s 25 laps03 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m19.423s +0.292s 21 laps04 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1m19.697s +0.566s 27 laps05 Jenson Button McLaren 1m19.833s +0.702s 24 laps06 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1m20.097s +0.966s 28 laps07 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1m20.105s +0.974s 32 laps08 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m20.210s +1.079s 21 laps09 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1m20.337s +1.206s 28 laps10 Adrian Sutil Sauber 1m20.505s +1.374s 18 laps11 Felipe Massa Williams 1m20.542s +1.411s 19 laps12 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1m20.586s +1.455s 23 laps13 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1m20.592s +1.461s 22 laps14 Sergio Perez Force India 1m20.598s +1.467s 24 laps15 Susie Wolff Williams 1m20.769s +1.638s 22 laps16 Giedo van der Garde Sauber 1m20.782s +1.651s 23 laps17 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1m21.603s +2.472s 20 laps18 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1m21.854s +2.723s 30 lapsb19. Kamui Kobayashi Caterham 1m22.572s +3.441s 31 laps20 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1m22.982s +3.851s 24 laps21 Marcus Ericsson Caterham 1m23.256s +4.125s 35 laps22 Max Chilton Marussia 1m23.299s +4.168s 22 laps
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